"Evangelist" is mentioned as one of the five-fold offices of Christ in Eph. 4:11. Let us start by looking at that passage in context:
Eph. 4:9-16
He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head - Christ - from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
We see here that Jesus did not put the offices, particularly the office of evangelist, into the church to excuse the Body of Christ from spreading the good news. Rather those in the office of evangelist are expected to train and equip the Body of Christ to be effective witnesses and mature Christians. Evangelists are effective witnesses themselves. God gives them a spiritual authority to be effective in winning the lost. But that is only a part of their function. Jesus also expects His evangelists to train and equip "everyday believers" to become effective witnesses.
In fact, Jesus expects every believer to be His witness. You do not have to be in the office of evangelist to share Christ effectively. If you belong to Jesus, you have been commissioned to share the good news. Let's develop that from Scripture.
Jesus was an evangelist when He walked this earth. He defined the scope of His personal ministry as being sent to the lost sheep of Israel, to bring them back into right relationship with God (Matt. 15:24). When Jesus trained His disciples, He sent them out as evangelists as well. First He sent them to only those lost sheep. Matt. 10:5-7 says, "These 12 Jesus sent out with the following instructions: 'Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message: "The kingdom of heaven is near."'" After Jesus sent out the twelve, He sent out 70 others as evangelists to proceed Him everywhere He was about to go (Luke 10:1).
His instructions to the 70 were interesting. Right from the beginning, Jesus complained about the labor shortage (of evangelists) and instructed them to ask the Lord of the harvest to raise up more workers to send out into His field (Luke 10:2). If you think about this, this is interesting. How do we get more workers? Well, first we have to get people saved so that they can become workers in the field. So, Jesus was instructing them to pray for converts and to also pray that God will raise up these converts to become co-workers in spreading the gospel. It should be natural for new converts to grow up into effective witnesses.
When Jesus sent out the disciples, He did not send them out "empty handed" with just words. He sent His power and authority to back them up. Immediately before sending the disciples out as His witness, Jesus "gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness" (Matt. 10:1). Then in verses 7 and 8, Jesus ties preaching the gospel directly to demonstrating God's power. He says, "As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:7-8). When Jesus sent out the 70, they were given similar instructions: "Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you'" (Luke 10:9). In short, Jesus sends out His believers to be His witnesses and He backs up their message with His power and authority. The 70 returned amazed that they could move in Jesus' authority to heal and cast out demons (Luke 10:17). They had this authority because when Jesus sends us out as His witnesses, He empowers us and backs up His words with His authority.
When Jesus rose from the dead, He spent a little bit of time with His followers, and then He went back to His Father in Heaven. Jesus' parting instructions were a commission to His followers and to ALL people who would become His followers in the future. Those instructions included being His witnesses "in all the world" (Mark 16:15) and moving in His power with signs following (Mark 16:17), including healing the sick (Mark 16:18). Those instructions were not just for those who were present at Christ's ascension, they were for all believers. Jesus said in Matt. 28:18-20, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Jesus said that those who walked with Him were to teach the rest of us to observe all the things Jesus commanded them to do. He commanded them to be His witnesses in His power/authority (casting out demons, healing the sick, etc).
Thus, we see that His command to those disciples is passed on to the rest of us as well. Each one of us is to move in His power and authority and each of us is to be His witness. We must not default on this, leaving it only to those with the "gift of evangelism." We must not look to those in the office of evangelist to be the only ones to spread the good news and bring others into a life-giving relationship with Jesus.
Now the Bible does say that some people are called into the office of evangelist. They are given a part of Jesus' mantle and authority to share the good news effectively (Eph. 4:11). In other words, all of us are to do it, but these guys are specially gifted to be very good at doing it. We know that apostle Paul was really good at winning the lost. Even though Paul did work that was similar to what an evangelist does, the Bible does not call him an evangelist - it calls him an apostle. However, there are some people the Bible explicitly calls an evangelist. One of them is Timothy. Paul explicitly commissions him in 2 Tim. 4:5 to "do the work of an evangelist." Also, Acts 21:8 refers to Philip as an evangelist. So we see that God really does raise up some specialists in evangelism. He began doing so in the earliest days of the church and He has never stopped doing so.
There are many well-known people alive today who operate in that "office." Perhaps the most well known is Billy Graham. I believe he is a wonderful model of what Eph. 4:11 meant by evangelist. Let's look at him for a few seconds. One of my professors at Fuller Seminary used to be a part of Billy Graham's staff. He used to travel to various cities where Billy was about to go and train the believers there in how to share their faith. I took an evangelism course at seminary from this man, and I learned a lot about how Billy Graham runs his organization.
Billy Graham doesn't just pop into a city, hold a crusade and then pop out again. First, he will not work in a city where the various churches and denominations won't work together in unity. Pastors have to come together and start working together long before Billy Graham comes to their city, and if the pastors and churches won't do that, Bill Graham won't come. Billy doesn't just want to have masses of people come up for his altar call - he is not into statistics. Billy wants a healthy system of churches in place to help make disciples out of these new converts. He wants a place for them to go to get follow-up and discipleship so they can grow and mature in their new faith. So his organization starts working with the local pastors and churches way up front many months before he comes to an area. There are citywide prayer meetings and pastors' meetings, etc. Unity is promoted. Loving the lost and discipling new believers is promoted.
Then a few months before the crusade, Billy has training programs to train the counselors. There are classes offered by staff members in various churches in the area, where they train people how to share their faith. You can't be a counselor at his crusades unless you go through this training. The course lasts three or four weeks and covers much more than just what to do at the altar at one of his crusades. The goal of this training is not just to get altar workers. It is to raise up and train the Body of Christ on how to be effective witnesses. I had received this training as a part of my Fuller Seminary evangelism course. I received it again when Billy Graham held a crusade in my area and I signed up to be one of the counselors. It is excellent training; I enjoyed and benefited from it both times.
Also as a counselor, you make a commitment to follow up with each person you lead to the Lord. You promise to contact them multiple times to see how they are doing in their walk with God, to help them with questions that they may have as new believers, to encourage them to go to a local church, etc. The goal was not just to get someone to "pray the prayer," but to help them grow and mature into disciples.
An evangelist never promotes himself or uses his office as a platform for his/her pet issues. The evangelist always points to Jesus and lifts Him up. I remember watching a Billy Graham interview on CNN one time. The interviewer wanted to get Billy's opinion on current events, but Billy kept bringing it back to the good news. So the interviewer tried to sidetrack him with emotionally laden issues. He did this over and over again, asking questions like "what about homosexuals?" And each time he did this, Billy kept pointing back to Jesus and the gospel. He shared it in a positive and loving manner. Billy, in true form as an Eph. 4:11 evangelist, kept the point and focus on Jesus and on the good news of what He did for us.
Some of the modern-day evangelists operate primarily through "godly persuasion" (like Billy Graham). Others move heavily in power gifts, because signs and wonders back up the proclamation of the gospel, such as Reinhard Bonnke, Benny Hinn, etc.
Areas an Evangelist Must Excercise Care In
In our last lesson, we showed that an evangelist is someone Jesus has called and gifted to be highly effective in 1) winning the lost and 2) motivating, training and equipping everyday believers to be effective witnesses. We saw that all believers are called to be Jesus' witnesses, that job does not fall to only the evangelists. We saw that Jesus usually backs up the proclamation of the gospel with a demonstration of His power - the sick are healed, demons are cast out, etc. God does that for everyday believers as well as for those in the office of evangelist. However, those in the office of evangelist tend to see it on a bigger scale.
Now let's move on and look at some of the things that evangelists have to be very careful about:
- Walk blameless
- Promote only Jesus
- Foster faith and belief (personally and in others)
- Raise up witnesses
- Make disciples, not converts
We will look at the first two now then look at the next three in the next lesson.
Walk Blameless
All believers are examples of Jesus, but particularly those who are in the public eye, such as evangelists or Christian TV or radio personalities. Those who are in the public eye need to be blameless in all areas. They can't get away with things that others can get away with. 2 Timothy 4:5 gave instructions to evangelist Timothy. It says, "But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry."
If you are an evangelist, then all aspects of your life and ministry must clearly and accurately reflect Jesus. Anything that makes you look bad also makes Jesus look bad, and gives a black eye to the cause of the gospel. Evangelists promote Jesus as loving and as the solution to people's problems. Therefore, they must model loving and godly behavior in all they do. The overseer's qualifications from 1 Tim. 3:2-7 are an excellent description of qualifications and code of conduct for an evangelist:
"Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap."
Promote Only Jesus
Resist the temptation to promote yourself instead of promoting Jesus. This plays out in two areas. The first is that evangelists are frequently thrust into the public eye. It can be overwhelming to a person to suddenly have a whole bunch of people wanting to know his/her opinion on this/that. There is a saying, "fame destroys." In other words, godly people can get caught up in the "fame" aspects that often come with being promoted by God to promote Jesus. It can be tempting to fall into pride, to become arrogant or to get your eyes and focus off of Jesus. It can become tempting to start to lift up your own name and reputation instead of lifting up Jesus. But evangelists must not do that. They must think of themselves like John the Baptist, whose job was to go before Jesus and point people to Jesus. John 3:26-36 puts it this way:
They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan - the one you testified about - well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him."To this John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of Him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less. The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
The second area is that we must not have men look to us for something God is doing. This plays out in many areas, but let me use healing as an example. Some evangelists have a strong healing anointing. People come to their crusades, not because they want to hear about Jesus, but because they want to be healed. They will tend to look to the evangelist to heal them, and it is important for the evangelist to redirect and clarify that he doesn't heal anyone, Jesus does.
Let's take Benny Hinn as an example. I know he is a controversial figure; some love his ministry and others can't stand him. I used to be in the "other" camp; I had a very low opinion of him. I had been to one of his meetings once and the people lined up to get in were like a mob, pushing past each other and sometimes knocking each other down to get a good seat. That offended me (I was more easily offended in those days than I am now), and I decided the man was bad news and I did not want to have anything to do with him ever again. I thought he was one of those hype faith healers and I avoided his ministry like the plague.
Then one day God told me to turn on the TV and the Benny Hinn show came on. I was going to change the channel, but God said, "Watch it. There is something coming up I want to show you." The next thing that came up was an announcement of a Benny Hinn crusade in my area and instructions on how to volunteer as an usher. Then God spoke to me clearly and said, "Teresa, you put him down in your mind, so I am sending you to go serve his ministry for a season and learn about it. I want you to go and serve as an usher."
I was shocked that God would tell me to do that, but I obeyed Him. I had to go through some training and I learned that Benny was an evangelist, not a faith healer. (I never knew that he was an evangelist before that training meeting.) They spent a long time training us how to politely but effectively handle the eager crowds. I saw that the area where I had been so critical of them was indeed an area of great concern to them. I also learned that Benny's highest priority was the presentation of the gospel. Somehow I ended up being a captain of ushers instead of just an usher. I served at all the meetings in my area and then God told me to travel once at my own expense with the ministry and continue to serve in that capacity. So I did.
Serving as an usher captain gave me a great opportunity to see and observe a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. For instance, it became very clear that the focus and target of the meetings was to share the gospel and that the healings were God backing up the gospel with His power and authority. I was down on the field during the altar call and again during the healing ministry time. There was not hype and there was a clear presentation of the gospel. Over and over again, I heard Benny correct people who said he healed them. He would tell them that Jesus healed them and that he (Benny) could not heal anyone. Over and over again people tried to look to him for the healing or to give him credit for it. And over and over again, he would give the credit and glory back to Jesus. Benny had a very strong agenda that Jesus' name be lifted high. I gained a respect for the man and his ministry as I served under him and watched him go to great lengths to assure that ONLY the name of Jesus was lifted up at his meetings.
It certainly can be tempting for evangelists who move in signs and wonders to encourage people to look to themselves instead of to Jesus. It can be tempting to take credit for some of what God is doing. But every evangelist must discourage that and point the people back to Jesus.
More on Evangelist
In our last lesson, we started to look at some of the things that evangelists have to be very careful about. The list included
- Walk blameless
- Promote only Jesus
- Foster faith and belief (personally and in others)
- Raise up witnesses
- Make disciples, not converts
The last lesson already covered walking blameless and promoting only Jesus. The main point was that the evangelist must walk in a holy and godly manor and avoid all inappropriate behavior that might reflect poorly on the message of the gospel. And the evangelist must assure that their primary and only message is the good news of how many can come into personal relationship with Jesus. They must not promote their personal issues and pet causes (anti-abortion, gun control, etc) because they must have a single and clear message about Jesus, they must point only to Him.
Now, let's continue on with the other three areas where the evangelist must be careful.
Foster Faith and Belief
John 14:12-14 is the passage where Jesus told us that if we have faith, we can do the same things He did. This promise is for all believers, but it is particularly important for evangelists, because evangelists need to have God's power to back up the Good News. The early believers experienced this.
In Acts 2:43, we see that "many wonders and signs were done." In Acts 6:8, we find that "Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people." This is in direct relationship to verse 7, which says, "Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." There was a direct tie between evangelism and the manifest power of God, and there was also a direct tie between faith and the manifest power of God. Thus, it follows that evangelists need to be people of faith, and they need to foster faith in their own life so they can move in His power and authority.
History is full of men and women of faith who proclaimed the good news of the gospel and moved in healings, deliverances and evidences of the power of God. Stephen the first martyr did this, as did Paul and the original 11 apostles. Recent history has people such as John Alexander Dowie, Maria Woodworth-Etter, John G. Lake, Smith Wigglesworth, Aimee Semple McPherson, Kathryn Kuhlman, William Branham, A.A. Allen and John Wimber. And we have seen many modern-day evangelists who proclaim the gospel and God backs their message up with manifestations of His power with physical healings, deliverances, and signs and wonders. There are many such men and women alive today, people of faith who have the office of evangelist. I can't possibly list them all, but let me name a few: Reinhard Bonnke, Benny Hinn, Charles N'Diffon, Randy Clark and Mahesh Chavda.
Second, those in the office of evangelist need to foster faith in others and equip/release them into moving with God in His power. John Wimber was an evangelist in his own right, having lead many to the Lord. But his bigger "claim to fame" was that he trained and equipped thousands of everyday believers to do it too. In fact, an entire association of churches was birthed from John Wimber's efforts to train/equip/release the saints into power evangelism and physical healing. It is known as the Association of Vineyard Churches. Another example is Randy Clark. He preaches the good news and sees many thousands of people saved and healed each year all over the world. Randy's message to the church is, "God can use 'little ole me' and He can use you too!" Randy frequently takes teams of believers with him on foreign evangelistic outreaches to serve as his prayer team. He takes pastors and leaders and everyday believers. He has a mandatory training program they have to go through to travel with him and so far, each person Randy has taken with him has seen God do miraculous healings by the second day they were praying on his teams. Randy is not just proclaiming the gospel, he is training and equipping other believers to do it. And He is fostering their faith and releasing people to move in the demonstration of God's power that backs up the proclamation of the gospel. That is what an evangelist is supposed to do.
Raise Up Witnesses
Some Christians have a tendency to look for excuses not to become witnesses. They will say things like, "I am not an evangelist. Let the folks with the gift of evangelism go do the work of witnessing and proclaiming the gospel." In other words, if you are an evangelist, others will use you as an excuse not to witness. But Eph. 4:12 says that the reason Jesus gave evangelists to the Body of Christ was "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the Body of Christ may be built up." In other words, part of an evangelist's calling and mandate is to train and equip believers how to be effective witnesses and how to share their faith.
Make Disciples, Not Converts
We live in a very numbers-and-statistics orientated culture. Often people measure the effectiveness/success of an evangelist by how many people he leads to the Lord each year. And those with perceived success are the ones who are rewarded financially. In other words, churches and individual believers invest their offerings in the ministries they believe are most successful.
This can put real pressure on people to "go for the numbers." In other words, there can be pressure to get decision cards and then not invest any more of the ministry resources on new converts. But studies find that new believers need follow-through, they need to be discipled and trained, to be connected with good churches.
Many people who make a decision for Christ struggle with basics like, "How do I know I'm really saved?" "Do I have to stop doing the things I enjoy now that I am saved?" "How can I know what God's will for me is?" Many of new converts do not know that God will help them with their problems, that He will set them free from enemy oppression and depressions, addictions, etc. Many do not know that God wants to speak to them clearly and directly. They don't know how to begin the process of learning to recognize God's voice. They haven't read the Bible yet, so they don't even know what the Bible says or where to begin. Most new converts will start at the beginning of Genesis and then read Exodus and if they are really persistent, they may start on Leviticus. Most don't make it very far because they are starting in the wrong place and it is confusing and frustrating. They need someone to help them past the initial basics and "getting started" or they will become like the seeds that were sown on the rocky soil where they don't take root and become scorched and withered.
According to my Fuller seminary evangelism class, about 75 percent of those who pray to receive Christ and don't receive follow-up to help them get rooted and begin to grow end up falling away from the faith.
It's not enough to make "converts" or to get the people to "pray the prayer" and then leave them to their own devices. Jesus never commanded us to make converts; He commanded us to "make disciples." He phrased it this way in Matt. 28:19-20: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
The commission involves teaching them to obey Christ or helping them to grow and become rooted in Him. And that is an evangelist's goal - to make disciples who can in turn learn to share their faith and make new disciples, who will also eventually grow and mature and learn to share their faith and make new disciples, and so on.
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